Tag Archives: broken jaw

Three week update

27 Apr

Sunday was three weeks after the update, so I might as well post an update on things.

  • I’m no longer wearing any bandages on  anything. This is good because I was almost running out of bandages. The abrasions on my hands and elbows are all but healed, with only small scabs left behind.
  • I still haven’t been successful in shaving my face completely, but I haven’t put much effort into that.
  • The pressure in my left ear has faded considerably over the last few days, which I suppose means that the swelling around the site of the fracture has subsided.
  • I bought a hand blender on Saturday, thinking it would be useful when I was having trouble getting all the lumps out of something with my full blender, but I haven’t found anything to use it on yet. At this point, it was something I could have done without, but I had become somewhat frustrated with having to put things back in the blender to get the last few lumps out.
  • I still haven’t even started looking for shoes to replace the ones that were splattered with blood in the accident and were  falling apart even before that. This is one thing that veganism makes difficult. If I recall correctly, I found my last pair on a site that seems to no longer have its vegan shoe section.
  • I keep forgetting to mention that I was somewhat succesful in pureeing a veggie burger last weekend. It was a Dr. Praeger’s Sensible Foods California Burger, which I had previously noticed would fall apart if microwaved. Usually, of course, I don’t want my burgers to fall apart, but for pureeing this seemed ideal, so I microwaved a burger before throwing it in the blender with some water. It didn’t blend perfectly, and there were plenty of chunks caught in my wires when I finished, but most of it found its way into my stomach. I probably won’t try that again, but I wouldn’t consider it a failure.
  • I continued my streak of masochism by attending two more Earth Week events with vegan food on Thursday. I also had to turn down food samples at the city Earth Day celebration on Saturday. My jaw will be ready for Earth Day next year, though!

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The return of somewhat normal conversation

21 Apr

My speech has improved to the point where I can sometimes carry on a one-on-one conversation without feeling a need to explain my injury to the other person. If I need to speak loudly for whatever reason, it’s still pretty obvious that something isn’t quite right, but I can now speak at a more-or-less normal volume without feeling overly self conscious. This allowed me to finally pick up the pay check that’s been waiting for me since the beginning of the month and drop the course I’ve been planning to drop since the injury.

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Milestones

19 Apr

Today marks a couple of milestones. Roughly half an hour from now will be two weeks from the time of my accident. Early this morning was the halfway point of my time having my jaw wired shut. For the most part, the recovery is going better than I expected. I certainly wouldn’t have thought that after only two weeks, my face wouldn’t have any scars or scabs. There are a couple of spots that are a bit pink, but the most noticeable change is that I still haven’t shaved my chin near where I had stitches. The abrasions on arms, legs, and hands are healing, but a bit slower than my face.

I still have to get to work on writing about the last two weeks.  Unfortunately, I’m badly behind in my schoolwork.

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Introduction

18 Apr

Just under two weeks ago, I fell off of my bicycle and sustained a number of injuries, the most serious of which was a mandibular fracture. I plan to use this blog to share various musings related to these injuries, as well as things I’ve learned that might be helpful to other people in similar situations.

At various times, it may be helpful for a reader to know that I am a vegan and a graduate student in mathematics. I suspect that anybody who knows me and finds this blog would recognize that I am the author, but I don’t plan on identifying myself at this time.

Obviously, I’m getting something of a late start on this blog, with the accident nearly two weeks behind me already. I’ve been meaning to start this blog for some time now, but life has been busy. I have quite a number of entries that I’d like to write, and I plan on back-dating some posts according to when I first thought to write them.

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A culinary success

17 Apr

For dinner today, I had a smoothie which I might actually want to make again after I’m able to open my mouth again. Then it won’t be a meal, of course, but it was really quite good. I didn’t write down exact amounts of ingredients, but I’ll call it a Peanut Butter Apple Cinnamon Smoothie. I made it by blending a So Delicious Cinnamon Bun soy yogurt with a few tablespoons of peanut butter and maybe 1/3 cup of applesauce, a little bit of soymilk, and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. After that was all blended, I added more soymilk until the volume was about three cups, and blended some more.

The smoothie felt as though it was just thin enough that it could pass through the straw, and the flavor was really very good. Something about the flavored soy yogurt made it particularly so.  The peanut butter has plenty of fat and protein, so it was nice and filling, too.

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A challenge

17 Apr

I’ve found my oral surgeon’s assurance, “You’re going to lose some weight” replaying over and over in my head over the last couple of days. I’m not exactly sure why. I wasn’t particularly disturbed by the idea of losing a few pounds. It may well have just been his level of confidence in his prediction that made it stuck with me like this. It also reminds of the nurse last week saying that I’m “already such a little guy” (which did bother me). By now I’ve come to see these remarks as the basis for a challenge to avoid losing weight while I’m wired. I haven’t weighed myself since two weeks before the accident, but I’ll aim for the most recent measurement I have: 155 pounds. As a rule, I’ll try to refrain from doing anything particularly stupid, like consuming to the point of feeling sick or drinking vegetable oil from a cup.

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The wired diet, with Vega

17 Apr

It’s been a couple of days since my supply of Vega arrived, but it’s already changed my life for the better. I already mentioned that it allowed me to go a few hours without eating while I taught back-to-back sections yesterday. A Vega meal replaces at least a couple of smoothies, and it offers more nutritional balance. It’s also a major convenience in the mornings because it’s one meal for the day that I don’t need to prepare before leaving for the office. The taste isn’t great, but it’s at least tolerable. My container of soy protein powder has gone back into the cabinet, so I don’t feel like I’m living off of a monoculture anymore. When I was deciding whether to try this stuff, I had a little bit of trouble coming to terms with the price tag, but so far, it’s definitely worth it.

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Teaching through the wires

16 Apr

Today was a big day for me. For the first time since my accident, I taught my three sections. I knew that my speech wouldn’t be perfectly normal, and so it still might be hard for students to hear me if the room were full of chatty students. I also knew that it might be hard for students whose first language wasn’t English. To resolve these issues, I prepared detailed notes for the lesson and told the students that they could take them and leave if they wanted to. I expected that since most of my students were only taking the course to get into business or medical school, most of them would exercise this option. This would have the dual effect of giving the students another way of getting my lesson, and keeping the background noise in the classroom at a reasonable level. My expectation proved correct, as I had only six students among the three sections stay the whole time. Many of those who left didn’t even bother to take the notes.

I’m always a little tired after teaching three sections in one day, and today is no exception. Other than that, though, I feel great.  Less than a week ago, I struggled to get even just a word or two out of my mouth, and I was starting to lose hope that I’d be able to teach today. To have been able to get up and teach for four hours under these circumstances is a huge psychological victory that low attendance isn’t going to take away from me.

In all fairness, I owe some credit for today’s success to Vega. I teach two consecutive sections with only 10 minutes in between, which means that I have to go about three hours without eating. On a liquid diet, that would ordinarily be very difficult for me, but after my Vega breakfast, it was not so bad.

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One week check-in

15 Apr

Today marks one week since my mouth has been wired shut, and I commemorated the occasion by returning to the oral surgeon’s office for a check-in appointment. The oral surgeon looked in my mouth briefly and was impressed by how clean it was. He then started talking about eating. He told me that it was only two weeks before I could eat again, but added, “You are going to lose some weight.” He asked if I had been using anything like Ensure or Carnation Instant Breakfast. I told him that I hadn’t, although I didn’t tell him that I was vegan. I wasn’t particularly worried, because thanks to UPS online tracking, I knew that my supply of Vega had been delivered to my door while I was in the office.

I’ll be returning to the oral surgeon in two weeks to get the wires removed.

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Tea

13 Apr

At the math department tea today, I drank lemonade from a cup without a straw. This was the first time I drank from a cup since the accident. I might have been able to do as early as Friday, when I had the two stitches removed from my lip, but this was the first time I had any reason to try.

There were white corn chips at the tea, and I found myself craving these. I had no interest in yellow corn chips; I specifically wanted the white ones. Of course, the matter is of no practical importance given that I can’t open my mouth anytime soon.

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